I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for transmitting and receiving reference signals in a wireless communication network.
II. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of cells that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A cell may refer to a base station and/or a coverage area of the base station, depending on the context in which the term is used. A UE may communicate with a cell via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the cell to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the cell. The cell may transmit a reference signal and data to the UE. The reference signal may be used for channel estimation and/or other purposes.